Why the TV personality openly shares her alcohol-free journey with online community

Melissa Grelo knows how to party. The Canadian TV host is best known for her hosting role on CTV’s daytime talk series, The Social, and more than 150,000 followers keep up with her on Instagram as she shares behind the scenes sneak peeks while filming the hit talk show or attending TIFF red carpet events.

But of all the life snippets that she’s shared online, one post in particular was a surprise success: an unboxing video of non-alcoholic drinks. “It was huge,” says Grelo. “I was not expecting the response. It was so positive. People were saying things like, ‘Oh, my God, you're the party girl, like if you can do this, I can do this.’” So she kept sharing.

Sharing is caring, after all, and Grelo is candid about her alcohol-free lifestyle. “I'm not here trying to influence people,” she says. “What I definitely am trying to do is to provide an alternative voice.” As a busy and driven mom, she’s familiar with “Mommy Juice” culture and the common narrative that some women her age talk about: relying on alcohol as an escape from a hectic lifestyle. “I’m in that world. My daughter's nine, I work like crazy, I have a husband, I have aging parents,” Grelo says. “A lot of us are going through stress, and alcohol may be this escape or this outlet. But I wanted to question that.”

Health and wellness was what first encouraged Grelo to step away from alcohol last September. She signed up for a fitness program that had participants cut out alcohol for 90 days. It wasn’t easy, but after three months, she decided to continue on and see what happened. Since then, Grelo has been open with followers about her ongoing health journey – she posts updates about her gut biome or skin condition – and she’s eager to share her favourite non-alcoholic drinks, too. “I know that my platform is influential,” she says. “If I'm going through a reassessment of my relationship with alcohol as a 40-something year old woman, I want to share it.”

“I literally look through the activities in a day that I undertake to try to be as healthy as possible… Why do I have alcohol on this list?”

— Melissa Grelo

Grelo’s move away from alcohol coincided with her pursuit of longevity. She spent so much time and effort on her health and wellness journey. She researched which foods to eat, how to exercise effectively, which deodorant to use. She does yoga, meditates, exercises – the list goes on and on. Alcohol was the outlier. “I literally look through the activities in a day that I undertake to try to be as healthy as possible… Why do I have alcohol on this list?” Cutting it out was a key piece of the puzzle.

“But some people say, Well, what's wrong with one glass of wine on a Saturday night for dinner? You're right, maybe nothing,” Grelo says. “But it just didn't make sense to me that I was going so hard on this health journey, but alcohol was still in the mix. It was so counterproductive to all of the other activities that I do on a daily basis.” It’s not just alcohol. Grelo wants to normalize making room to reassess and question your relationship with whatever it is you rely on and think you can’t live without.

Surrounded by a friend group of “strong ass women,” Grelo says they were totally supportive of her choice. “When someone makes a decision about something in life, whether it's about a relationship, a decision about work, or a decision like me to stop drinking, there's never judgment,” she says. And don’t get it twisted – cutting out alcohol doesn’t mean she needs to miss out on all the fun – they still party together and go out dancing.

In a culture where alcohol features prominently in social engagements, Grelo wants to debunk the myth that you can’t have fun if you’re not a drinker. “I'm not some stay at home hermit, I love to go out. I love to go clubbing and I party and I dance,” she says. “The idea that I can do that without alcohol is very intriguing for people, and I'm happy to lean into the idea that you can still live life very joyfully without it.”

Admittedly, some clubs and restaurants are falling behind when it comes to their alcohol-free offerings. Sometimes a pop or a soda water just doesn’t cut it. “One of my missions is to educate restaurateurs to create or expand their non-alcoholic beverage list,” Grelo says. “There are people like me who appreciate a well-made drink, whether there's alcohol in it or not, and we are willing to pay!” Grelo hopes someday soon restaurants all over can make every drink on the menu as a mocktail. “That is the future,” she says.

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